Get better surround sound with this Samsung sound bar. It has Bluetooth capabilities that let you stream music wirelessly from any compatible device, and the 350W of power and Dolby Digital speakers provide optimal sound output. Download the Samsung Audio Remote App to control this Samsung sound bar right from your phone.

Cons

I didn't like the idea of that and return the product and during the process I really wanted to give it a shot but I was not satisfied of how poor the volume is in order to hear the sound bar loud and it stops at 50 volume when it's just getting louder.–Elanor23

Customer image gallery

Best reviews

Best overall soundbar (with a catch)

Posted 2 months ago

vindieselsupreme

Member

Prior to buying this soundbar, I had my Samsung KS8000 4K HDR TV and an old Samsung Home Theater system (which I already sold) in my living room. FYI Living room is medium-sized as this important for the review of this soundbar. Visited my local BestBuy to check this soundbar (I wanted to stick with Samsung; trusted and enjoyed the quality of the products) - looks, quality, audio, price. They all checked the boxes for me. Saw that it had Dolby Atmos and some of the newest technologies out in the market. HW-K950 was also on my radar but $1000+ dollars for 2 additional rear speakers was a bit too much for me. I trusted that Dolby Atmos would do the job. Bought the HW-K850. Setup is a little funky. My impression was ok, TV and soundbar have HDMI ports...simpleplug and play right because who reads manuals these days. Did that, turned my TV on and then turned the sound bar, and the display on the soundbar boots up and shows Wi-Fi. Since both are Samsung, the soundbar connected via Wi-Fi which I did not expect. Confused but content at the moment. Changed the audio source on the TV to the soundbar. Audio is very crisp, clear but bass was lacking a bit. Turned up the bass and treble levels on the soundbar; helped but not much. Slightly disappointed at this moment until I went to the audio settings on the TV. There is whereI adjusted the sound output levels, giving the levels a sort of bell-shape curve to it and the subwoofer to max. Tested the sound out with regular TV programming. That dramatically changed the sound in a very good way. But DolbyAtmos was I wanted to test out. Brought up Netflix and put on an action movie (don’t remember which one). Here is where the catch is: my first impression was that DolbyAtmos should automatically turn on when something is streaming. But that wasn’t the case. Sound wasn’t super great like it was when I adjusted the sound output levels. Did some research on Netflix with DolbyAtmos and noticed DolbyAtmos is not supprorted by Netflix on Samsung TV’s. Huge bummer for me. I switched the effect on the soundbar to Surround and the movie sounded muffled. Chose a different movie and the sound completely (in a very good way), with scenes involving shooting and explosions literally shaking the windows to my living room and floor rattled (which says a lot about the sound quality). This soundbar really impressed me. It is my understanding that certain movies on Netflix (maybe other streaming services too) show the amount of channels supported by the movie, and theremore will make a big difference when using this soundbar. As for the DolbyAtmos feature, I was told by a different BestBuy rep at a different store that a A/V receiver was not needed (which I was very close to buying in irder to take advantage of the soundbar’s DolbyAtsmo and extra features) and instead a 4K UHD player was highly recommended to take advantage of the feature. Bought one recently with a 4K UHD movie to go along with it, set it up with my soundbar and TV using 4K HDMI cables and what do you know, DolbyAtmos appeared on the soundbar display after turning it on and playing the movie and the player. The sound was incredibly better: very clear, crisp sound. You can every detail no problem, and DolbyAtmos worked fantastic. Sound coming from all dirrections, really felt like you are in the movie. Overally conclusion: very great soundbar if you are ok with sacrificing the 2 rear speakers from the HW-K950 model to save a couple hundred dollars. As long as you have the proper equipment to take full advantage of DolbyAtmos (4K HDR TV and 4K UHD player), this soundbar will not disappoint.

I would recommend this to a friend

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Nautalicious

Elite Plus Member

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

5

ATMOS-kicks in

Posted 8 months ago

Nautalicious

Elite Plus Member

I bought this sound bar with a "matching" 4k tv on to find out i needed a "matching" 4k DVD player...i bought so samsung cause Samsung quality just has a superior well designed feel.
So here is what I learned after 6 months of having this system set up. I had it set up all wrong! I ran my dvd directly to the tv and allowed my tv to feed my sound bar. All the remotes worked and everything to function as designed. This sound bar sounded so good that I thought I had it set up properly. I noticed my dvd would flicker as if the cable was subpar or something. So one night after doing some reading and trying to figure out why I had this random unexplained flicker when playing dvds I found out few excellent tips I felt the need to share.
1. This thing has wifi....set it up!!!!
2. Samsung has an APP that you can download to play music via wifi which makes a better connection than Bluetooth...such as IHeart, Pandora or Spotify
3. If you already mounted the speaker and cant the back to enable the w ifi, just hold the "UP" arrow on the sound bar remote for 5 seconds and it will enable wifi mode
4. App controls the equalizer function and inputs as a short cut
5. There is also a software update that can only be downloaded from the app. The update enables DTS 5.1 sound, which is a bonus. It also allows the volume to max out at 100 instead of 50
6. Now here is where it gets good...you need to plug the 4k DVD player into the sound bar and then you're in the game.
7. With your dvd player plugged directly in the sound bar Dolby Atmos will display in the led when it's recognized as the audio format.
8. There is a blue led in the right corner that also turns on when you are in Dolby atmos.
After struggling with a "professional" setup and get bits and pieces of info from best buy and the installer I finally have some of the best cinematic sound you can get out of this sound bar. The volume tremendously changes when playing dvds and with the volume on just 30 it's amazing..volume on 40 and its just spectacular the amount of sound detail and the pumping bass vibration you get. The subwoofer is supremely matched to This system.
I would wholeheartedly recommend this unit now that I figured out how to set it up.
Also when you now turn on the dvd player it auto switches input and back when turn off. And the reason I started all this was the dvd flicker totally gone....appear to have been that the tv was not sending/receiving data on the arc fast enough and was flicking.
Dolby Atmos movies are the real deal!
Sincerely, a newly satisfied buyer!

I would recommend this to a friend

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dedwards

Elite Plus Member

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

5

Very Good Sounding Soundbar

Posted 1 year ago

dedwards

Elite Plus Member

I am pretty picky when it comes to home theater equipment, I purchased 2 other sound bars previous to this one and had to return both of them. I am not willing to compromise on my TV sound.
I was using a pioneer elite receiver along with 4 Boston CR77 speakers and it sounded very very good, but with getting a larger screen I was no longer able to keep the existing audio setup given my space. I currently have a Sony X850D-55, I purchased it with a sony soundbar that was $450. I was not impressed with the sound at all, so I took it back. I asked the rep at the the desk what he thought the best sounding bar they had was (noting that price was not a concern). He pointed out a $550 Polk soundbar, I took it home and had such a hard time setting it up, when I got everything arranged correctly the soundbar sounded very bad and in some cases speech in tv shows was not working. So I returned the sound bar.
I then realized that it seemed like each person who worked at my local bestbuy was assigned to each of the major brands. So when I was asking around, one guy pointed out the polk soundbars, another gentleman said that the Sony soundbars are the best, another worker pointed out the Sonos system to be the absolute best system, and another person said that Samsung soundbars were the best ones that they had. So I was extremely frustrated, and kinda mad. All of these people had told me that their bar was the best, and all I wanted was someone who wouldn't try to sell me something. I wanted someone to tell me 'This is expensive and I wouldn't personally purchase it, but it is honestly the best bar we have.". I spent a week or so researching and trying to find something that would work for me, I went back to my local bestbuy to get another opinion. I spoke to another Samsung representative, who is a friends brother and told me, 'If you want the best, the K850/K950 is the way to go. It sounds good, supports the atmos standard, and its build quality is among the best. The definitive W studio is just as good and is around the same price point. You can look for months for the best of the best, but personally I think this one is the best.'. Finally, someone who answered my simple question of 'What soundbar do I want in my house?'
The second I heard the Atmos Demo in the store, I knew that I needed to take it home with me. The sound quality is amazing, the setup is very simplistic, and no one will be disappointed with this purchase. I needed to have the full Atmos experience so I purchased the bar with a Samsung K8500 UHD Bluray player. They pair perfectly together, It took some time to get everything setup correctly to enable atrmos playback. You have to change the digital audio output settings to uncompressed and not PCM or any of the other presets. At this point I discovered that my HDMI 1 port on my soundbar is broken and does not work, which honestly isn't an issue unless I get multiple atmos sources in the future. I believe that you can only enable atmos on this sound bar through HDMI and not through toslink digital. I absolutely love the soundbar and personally think its worth every cent.
The soundbar is a little bit on the larger side so I had to have a TV stand custom made in order to put the TV higher than the sound bar. The soundbar was actually blocking the bottom of the TV and made the remote not work.
Would most definitely recommend to anyone who is looking for unparalleled sound experience that cannot or does not want a full home theater setup.

I would recommend this to a friend

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Daniel

Member

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

3

Too expensive for what you get.

Posted 1 year ago

Daniel

Member

We purchased this sound bar to go with our Samsung curved TV. My motivation for going with a Samsung bar was the idea of the TV and bar working seamlessly. The best buy rep showed me the bar and it sounded great as everything usually does in the store. The upward firing speakers boasting the power of Dolby atmos is what ultimately drove me to take this system home. Set up was easy and the sub and bar paired flawlessly. The sound was an obvious upgrade to the stock speakers of our TV and the subwoofer put out more than enough bass but left something to be desired. It was so hard to justify the $1000 price tag of this system. Not having any dolby atmos movies and the fact that neither Netflix or Amazon had any atmos supported movies (at least that I could find), I ordered a Blu-ray movie with atmos and put it to the test. While the quality did increase slightly, it still was not as impressive as in the store, and therefore left the price tag still unjustified. I ultimately returned the unit today and purchased the sonos play bar. The fact that we don't watch much, if any DVDs and the lack of directv, Netflix, and Amazon atmos content was a big deciding factor. While the sonos play bar and sub woofer are sold separately it actually worked better as we live in a town home and try to be as considerate as possible and the bar alone puts out enough bass. We are very happy with the sonos and plan to keep it.
Some things I liked about the Samsung sound bar:
Remote (sleek, volume AND subwoofer volume buttons),
Easy pairing, set up.
Decent sound
Dislikes:
Bluetooth connection to phone was sketchy. Music cut out.
Sometimes bar would not turn on automatically when we turned TV on.
Overall I would not recommend this to a friend. Spend the extra money on a Sonos system.

No, I would not recommend this to a friend

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eazye

Member

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

5

Excellent Sound Bar Paired with Samsung Smart TV

Posted 1 year ago

eazye

Member

I originally was going to go with the Definitive Technology W Studio Sound Bar, but I found a great open box deal at Best Buy for the Samsung Atmos Sound Bar AND I hear a great deal of positive (and negative) about the Samsung Dolby Atmos line of Sound Bars. The take away I got from the reviews was that the Sound Bar sounded great, but that many consumers weren’t impressed with Atmos. (Note: I currently don’t have any Atmos content to evaluate).
I purchased this sound bar not knowing that it would be an excellent fit with the Samsung Smart TVs. I have the Samsung 70" Smart TV Model #UN70KU6300FXZA. I was pleasantly surprised and love the setup since there is only one power wire connected to the sound bar. That's it! No additional wires! Again this can only be done if you have a Samsung Smart TV.
I originally had the traditional setup of hooking up the HDMI sources to the sound bar, then the sound bar HDMI to the TV. Then I discovered you can connect this sound bar wirelessly to a Samsung Smart TV. Love it. Dream setup.
Using the Samsung Multi-room app (you have to download in order for this setup to work) you can play the Samsung Smart TV WIRELESSLY through the Sound Bar. I've seen complaints that the max volume isn't so loud for this 350 Watt system, but the wireless hookup directly to the Samsung Smart TV provides more than enough volume for the room. The audio is actually noticeably louder at the same volume level as the HDMI hookups. Also you can play all your music directly using the Samsung Multiroom app or you can even use the Samsung Smartview App.
If you have a Samsung Smart TV, this is definitely the best setup with minimal wires since you can wireless connect the sound bar to the TV.

I would recommend this to a friend

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ogonzalez210

Elite Plus Member

Rating: 1 out of 5 stars

1

Do NOT Fall for Store Demo!!!

Posted 1 year ago

ogonzalez210

Elite Plus Member

So, I just got a new 65" Samsung 8 Series TV and wanted to have a matching Samsung soundbar to go with it. I’m an audiophile so I NEVER compromise when it comes to audio. After walking around the store, listening to the various Samsung soundbars, I came across this one. I clicked on the touchscreen to launch the sound demo and “WOW!” I was amazed at the sound quality and earth shattering bass and actually listened to the demo multiple times just because I was so impressed. I thought to myself, “I gotta have this!” Told one of the reps “I’ll take it!” and took it home. I was so excited unboxing this baby and hooking it up. Setup was easy; just 1 plug for power and 1 optical cable from TV to soundbar, then 1 plug for power to the subwoofer. Turned on my TV and this is where everything went downhill. I was greeted with sub-par sound and thought to myself, “This can’t be?! There’s gotta be something I’m doing wrong!”. I immediately started tweaking all the sound settings and tried my best to get this thing to sound as it did in the store. Although the background sound during movies was good, I could not hear speech and voices. What was even sadder was that the MAX volume was nowhere near where a soundbar at this price should be. The sound coming out of my TV speakers was louder than this soundbar. I started looking up support online to see if there was some “secret setting” that I may have missed because I couldn’t believe that a soundbar with so many good reviews could sound this bad, but after about 2 hours of fiddling with the thing, I gave up all hope on it. I cannot understand how this soundbar can have so many good reviews. After further research, as to what soundbar people suggest, I returned this one and went with the Sonos Playbar ($649.99) along with the Sonos SUB ($649.99) which did mean, yup that’s right, a whopping $1299.98! I was a bit disappointed at first since I really really wanted my equipment to be matching brands, but hey you win some, lose some. Once I got home and setup my Sonos system, I was blown away with the sound quality and deep deep bass. I felt like I was at the movies with the Sonos system. Don’t fall into the trap of buying this Samsung soundbar because, yes, it does sound good in the store, but it will NOT be the same at home. Do yourself a favor and save yourself the trouble and get a Sonos Playbar. Totally worth it!

No, I would not recommend this to a friend

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Brand response

MrSamsung

1 year ago

ogonzalez210:

Thank you for your review of this Samsung Soundbar.

I am sorry to hear that you had issues with this model and have returned it.

Should you ever decide to give Samsung Soundbars another try and have concerns or questions, please know we are always here to help. You can contact Samsung Customer Support toll-free at 1-800-SAMSUNG or via LiveChat or email.

A common misunderstanding that results in low volume/poor sound is that customers are not placing the soundbar with the SAMSUNG logo facing up towards the ceiling. If you position the soundbar with the logo facing up, you will see the display/status panel and the speakers will be facing outward. (Refer to product photos on BestBuy.com and zoom in on the photos) If you have incorrectly placed the soundbar with the status display side down and the SAMSUNG logo perpendicular to the floor, you will experience muffled or low quality sound because the unit will be resting on the speakers.

VD1986

Verified Purchase

Member

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

5

Bad Rep

Posted 9 months ago

VD1986

Verified Purchase

Member

The product is amazing, the quality and sound is definitely out of this world but let me be clear....you need to make sure you have the right equipment in order to use Dolby Atmos. When I visited best buy and spoke to the rep I was told that the soundbar would be fully functional if I connected it to the TV directly with HDMI and that my TV was 4k. After I purchased the item and a month later went by I wanted to test the Dolby Atmos feature (I know I took forever but I have a crazy work schedule so I finally had time to settle at home and watch a movie). When I purchased a movie through VUDU the DOLBY ATMOS logo did not show and it was because my 4K TV was not supported, afterwards I checked NETFLIX and other streaming services....long story short I couldn't utilize the Dolby Atrmos feature. So how can I use the feature if my 4K TV is not compatible with these streaming services? I will need to now buy a samsung blu-ray 4k receiver (whatever you call it) and it was something that I was avoiding. If I had known about this I would purchased another soundbar without the DOLBY ATMOS feature. This could of all been avoided if the best buy rep could of been more knowledgeable of the item, he literally said "the device will be fully functional if I connect directly with an HDMI and the TV is 4k and the samsung blu-ray is not needed." besides my small rant on my negative customer experience the product is amazing again....just make sure you can use all of its featutre, make you have the right TV and whatever else you need.

I would recommend this to a friend

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Greenhaven

Verified Purchase

Elite Member

Rating: 1 out of 5 stars

1

Has issues with Xbox One Dolby Atmos

Posted 11 months ago

Greenhaven

Verified Purchase

Elite Member

I had such high hopes for this sound bar, $1000 is a hefty amount to drop. I ended up returning this soundbar to the store within 24 hours of purchasing.
Lets start with the Pros:
-Easy to setup
-Looks very sharp
-Speakers sound amazing, very high quality
-Subwoofer is very nice, packs a great bang for its size
-Sound fills my small living room, without being overpowering
Cons:
-VERY confusing to get Dobly Atmos to work correctly.
-Does not appear to have any form of on-screen GUI to control the sound bar, must use a phone app that is very limited.
-Subwoofer can be very loud, even on its lowest setting.
-Does not work correctly with Atmos from XBox One. After spending over an hour to get it to work, Atmos would randomly turn off while not in a game or movie. Figured this was an sound auto-detect issue, but would sometimes take a while for Atmos to kick back in.
After an hour and half of playing a game, returned to the home screen, Atmos turned off, and would not turn back on for over 3 hours. Tried connecting to different HDMI Ports on my Samsung TV, and that made the problem worse. If i connected to the ARC port, the sound became staticy and popping. After 2 hours of trying everything i could think of, Atmos decided to start working again.
-Atempted to watch multiple movies, and was shown an error code, stating the sound bar was unable to decode Dolby Atmos. Could not get any movies to work in Atmos. After searching online, this appears to be a known issue with no resolution
TL:DR If you want Atmos from an XBox One, stay clear of this product, there are documented issues between XBox One and this sound bar.

Should you ever decide to give Samsung audio products another try and have concerns or questions, please know we are always here to help. You can contact Samsung Customer Support toll-free at 1-800-SAMSUNG or via LiveChat or email.

What experts are saying

Rating: 3.8 out of 5 stars with 5 reviews

3.8 (5 Reviews)

The analysis of all aggregated expert reviews shows that the reviewers are positive about design, usability, reliability and price. Editors are less positive about size. Using an algorithm based on product age, reviewers ratings history, popularity, product category expertise and other factors, this product gets an alaTest Expert Rating of 89/100 = Very good quality.

This is a mighty sound bar that comes with the full complement of expensive audio features. There's support for high-res digital audio, wireless multi-room streaming and also Dolby Atmos technology for more cinema-like sound in your living roomFull Review

If you like the idea of Dolby Atmos but feel daunted by the clutter involved, then Samsung's HW-K850 might be the answer. This soundbar boasts built-in Atmos speakers, eliminating the need to install speakers in your ceiling or buy separate modules.Full Review

Best answer: Plug your 4k dvd player directly into the soundbar to get atmos...it has to be a direct connection via hdmi. Once you do, when you play a 4k Dolby atmos DVD the sound bar will scroll Dolby atmos and the blue led will light up in the right corner of the sound bar.
Down load the Samsung multiroom app, pair your soundbar to the app using wifi and update to the new available firmware for the sound bar. It will increase your volume to 100 and also give you DTS 5.1 audio format.

Best answer: Hi Buck, we understand your concerns with the Soundbar. Please fill out the form below and one of our social media specialists would be happy to assist you. http://smsn.us/SamsungSupportUSA and we will respond accordingly. ^Britt

Best answer: Ive had this soundbar setup for almost 2 years. Mine is the HW-F850/ZA, maybe a couple function changes from the current model, but basically this same soundbar. Anyway, to answer your question: ABSOLUTELY,!!!! Once connected with a strong reliable bluetooth pairing, Your bluetooth device should have very little distortion(my iphone 6 has ZERO distortion up to the 2nd from the last click), and this Bar has Zero Distorion up to volume 44 out of 50 WITH the subwoofer set to MAX and the soundbar set to "PLUS MUSIC ON". Keep the sound-bar volume under 45, and set your bluetooth device around 80-90% of max. You will be BLOWN away at just how LOUD this soundbar gets when its used to play music via bluetooth. Ive also got the best soundbar you can buy from Magnolia, the DefTech Studio W. By comparison, the Deftech is a little cleaner at mid volume, and has a louder and truer bass response, but this samsung 850 is the loudest by a country mile when u crank it to the clouds!!!

Best answer: Plug your 4k DVD player directly into your sound bar HDMI 1 input then plug your arc from the sound bar to the tv and you will hear $900 in sound!! Took me 6 months to finally figure it out. Your sound bar will display Dolby atmos and has a blue led on the right corner when Dolby atmos is playing.
Also there is a software update that I highly recommend. You will need to download the Samsung multiroom app from the play store.